Between the chalk

The unprofitable route has obviously been hived off to a small firm resigned to getting its paint scratched. The bus was a rattler, and, as we thundered out of Salisbury through the rain, eerie wails and whistles emanated from the stern, and erratic chirps from the bow, while thickets of cow parsley swished along its flanks, twigs rattled briskly on the windows and an occasional ‘WHANG!’ indicated that the wing mirror had found something solid among the greenery.

Accompanied by this orchestration the bus threaded its way through the tiny villages along the Ebble: Coombe Bissett, Broad Chalke, Bower Chalke, Fifield Bavant, Ebbesbourne Wake. The tight turns and manoeuvres round other vehicles necessitated a certain amount of breath-holding. Those trackways were not built for anything bigger than a cow.

in Shaftesbury I walked. But that is a story needing pictures.

Returning to a similar tune, minus the wails, the sun emerged, lighting up the deep lanes and greening the high downs on either hand.

4th June: here are the photos

A shop in Salisbury caught my eye on the way to the bus

I wish I was going to be around for the barons when they come out.

Shaftesbury sits like an abrupt island above north Dorset

and is colder, windier, snowier than below. The day was a green autumn as the trees thrashed and shed..

Down below Castle Hill lie the villages of St James

and Enmore Green, and the Blackmore Vale

like a green sea beyond.

The sea even has an old ship, adapting itself to the present.

Here’s a wall to be intimate with

when going down Tout Hill. Don’t let go the pushchair …

Past the old cottages, grey in the rain

to St. James, tall in the tower

and long in the nave.

A lot of babies baptised since Iohn the Churchworden gave this.

On through the damp and up by another intimate wall.

It may need some more buttresses soon – I see it is dotted with tell-tales.